Submerged wall could be the largest Stone Age megastructure in Europe

A low stone wall almost a kilometre long has actually been discovered 21 metres listed below the surface area of the Baltic Sea off the German coast. The wall is believed to have actually been constructed around 11,000 years ago to transport reindeer into locations where they might more quickly be eliminated, and might be the biggest Stone Age megastructure in Europe.

The discovery was made by possibility. In 2021, trainees on a training workout with geophysicist Jacob Geersen at the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde in Germany utilized a multibeam finder to map the seafloor 10 kilometres offshore from the town of Rerik.

“Afterwards, in the laboratory, we understood that there was this structure that looks not natural,” states Geersen.

In 2022, he and his coworkers decreased an electronic camera down to the structure, which exposed a row of stones. “It was just when we got in touch with the archaeologists that we comprehended it might be something considerable,” states Geersen.

There’s no factor or proof for a contemporary structure to have actually been constructed undersea at this website, states staff member Marcel Bradtmölleran archaeologist at the University of Rostock, Germany. Nor can the group think about any natural procedure that might develop such a structure.

This recommends the wall was constructed when this location was dry landindicating it should be in between 8500 and 14,000 years of ages, states Bradtmöller. Before that, the location was covered by an ice sheet that would have ruined any stone structure, while, later on, increasing water level immersed the location

The wall runs along with what was as soon as a lake. It includes around 10 big rocks approximately 3 metres throughout and weighing a number of tonnes, linked by more than 1600 smaller sized stones primarily under 100 kgs in weight. The stones are positioned beside one another instead of on top of each other, and the wall is less than a metre high in the majority of locations.

The huge stones are all discovered where the wall zigs or zags. The group believes the structure was developed by connecting big stones that were too heavy to move with smaller sized stones that might be moved.

Bradtmöller thinks it was most likely made by hunter-gatherers coming from what is called the Kongemose culture, called after a website in Denmark where artefacts such as stone tools have actually been discovered.

The most likely description is that the structure was utilized to transport reindeer, he states. “The hypothesis that, at the minute, fits finest is a driving wall for searching.”

While these hunter-gatherers are believed to have actually lived and circumnavigated in little groups, they may have put together in bigger numbers at the lake when reindeer concerned the location, states Bradtmöller.

Comparable low walls, often called desert kiteshave actually been discovered in lots of locations in Africa and the Middle East, and likewise underneath the Great Lakes in North America. Some depend on 5 kilometres long, and it is now extensively concurred they were utilized for searching.

These walls are normally low enough that animals such as antelope might leap over them, they typically prevent them when running in herds, states Marlize Lombard at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, who has actually found comparable structures“In such scenarios, they tend to run parallel to barriers such as low fences, rather of traversing them,” she states.

Numerous desert kites include 2 walls in a V-shape to funnel animals, however a single wall can still be a reliable driving line, states Lombard. One possibility with the freshly found wall is that it was utilized to drive reindeer into the lake, where they were hunted from boats, states Bradtmöller.

It is likewise possible that there is a 2nd wall covered by sediment close by, states Geersen. He prepares additional examinations, consisting of diving, to search for direct proof of Stone Age individuals, however, up until now, the scientists have actually been prevented by bad weather condition.

Other professionals likewise concur with their conclusions. “I believe the case is well produced the wall as a synthetic structure constructed to funnel motions of migratory reindeer,” states archaeologist Geoff Bailey at the University of York in the UK.

“Such a discover recommends that comprehensive ancient searching landscapes might make it through in a way formerly just seen in the Great Lakes,” states Vincent Gaffney at the University of Bradford in the UK. “This has extremely fantastic ramifications for locations of the seaside racks which were formerly habitable.”

Modern activities such as trawlingcable-laying and wind farm building can damage such websites, states Geersen, so more expedition is required to discover them before they are lost.

No other structures of this kind have actually been found in Europe, states Bradtmöller. He believes it is most likely that numerous as soon as existed, however they were ruined by human activities.